A lot yet to be done

Published: June 30, 2005 12:00AM

With public doubts about the war in Iraq at a high point, President Bush asked the nation Tuesday night, "Is the sacrifice worth it?"
Answering his own question as he spoke from Fort Bragg, N.C., the home of the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division, Bush said, "It is worth it and it is vital to the security of our country."
Bush made several mentions of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, which House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said " ... show the weakness of his arguments. He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."
But it is a correlation the president unashamedly still draws.
"After Sept. 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy," Bush said.
"Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. ..."
Bush's speech did little to assuage critics, and offered nothing new in what he called a "clear path forward." He again rejected calls for an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq and for a deadline on bringing troops home, saying "... it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out."
His stance on troop strength is not without question, but we agree with the president that a troop timetable could be "a serious mistake."
A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed about 53 percent of Americans now regard the war as a mistake and about 56 percent disapprove of the administration's handling of the war. But about the same number favor keeping troops in Iraq until the country is stabilized.
While the world may be safer without
Saddam Hussein in power, more than 1,700 Americans and 12,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the 27-month-old war.
With no end to the insurgency in sight, hopefully Bush's Tuesday night address marks real progress toward "mission accomplished."
As Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said: "The president needs to do more of what he did last evening. This is a beginning."